Category: Technology


ZZZOOOOOOOMMMMMM

This post is dedicated to my friend Abhishek who claims that photography is his passion and I feel he doesn’t understand the P of photography. I have advised him to go through a professional training for photography and I wish he finds some time from his busy schedule. When I thought of learning photography the first need was to understand a camera.digital-cameraA digital camera is a camera that takes videos or still photographs, or both, digitally by recording images via an electronic image sensor.
Basic Features
1. Battery: Some digital cameras use standard alkaline batteries. Others come with rechargeable batteries and an AC power cord for recharging. To extend battery life, use the electronic LCD screen sparingly.
2. Camera Dock/Docking Station:A small, convenient desktop device you place your camera onto. It will automatically download photos from the camera to your computer, and charge the camera’s battery at the same time.
3. Digital Zoom:A digital zoom is software inside the camera that crops (selects part of) a photo and enlarges that portion. The digital zoom is handy, although it does reduce the resolution (sharpness) of your photo.
4. Display/LCD Screen:The screen on the back of the camera. The display lets you see the image you’re about to take, and view the photo after you’ve taken.
5. Image Resolution and Mega Pixels: The resolution of your digital camera determines what you can do with your photos, such as post them online or make prints and enlargements. Resolution is made up of building blocks called pixels. A million pixels together are called a megapixel. Today’s digital cameras have resolutions ranging from less than 3 megapixels to over 8 megapixels. The more megapixels, the more picture detail is captured, resulting in larger-size prints that look sharper (depending on the type of lens and zoom setting you’re using).
6. Downloading: Downloading is transferring photos from the camera to a computer or printer. It is usually done with a USB cable connected to the camera, or by removing your memory card and inserting it into your printer or memory card reader. Using a docking station or a printer dock is another convenient way to download
7. Flash: Most digital cameras are equipped with a built-in flash that is activated in dim lighting. Full-featured cameras have extra flash modes, such as red-eye reduction and night-portrait settings
8. Image Stabilizer: Some cameras come with an image stabilizing feature. It automatically eliminates any camera shake – the slight jiggling motion that can result as you hold the camera – helping ensure a crisp, sharp photo.
9. Lens: Basic point-and-shoot digital cameras have a fixed-focus lens. Most other models have an optical zoom, a digital zoom or both. An optical zoom lens actually moves outward toward the subject to take sharp close-up photos. However, a digital zoom simply enlarges the center portion of the subject to fill the frame, producing a photo with less detail.
10. Memory: Digital memory is the “film” of digital cameras. “Internal memory” is built into the camera and cannot be removed. Removable media, or external memory, consists of a memory card that can be removed from the camera so you can download later.
11. Memory card: This is the media on which the camera stores the images that it shoots. It may be filled with pictures, downloaded, and refilled thousands of times, which is one of their major advantages over standard photo film
12. Optical View Finder: This is a small “window” generally located at the top of the camera. Optical viewfinders are handy for two reasons:LCD screens are hard to see in bright light, so composing your shot is hard.Using the optical viewfinder (and turning off the LCD screen) will make your batteries last considerably longer.
13. Optical Zoom: This is the same kind of zoom lens found in high-end film cameras. An optical zoom lens actually moves in and out to get wide-angle, telephoto and macro (close-up) shots. Unlike a digital zoom, an optical zoom will not reduce the resolution of your photos.
14. Resolution: Resolution refers to the concentration of pixels or megapixels used to make up a photo. Cameras with higher resolution can take sharper photos. Resolution is expressed by the number of horizontal pixels multiplied by the number of vertical pixels in a square inch. For example, the most basic cameras have a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels per square inch (about 0.3 megapixels). Some advanced models can go up to 8 megapixels and beyond! A camera up to 4 MP will produce a sharp, full-frame print of 8 x 10. If you want to crop (select), then enlarge a portion of the image with no loss in quality, 5 MP and up is your best choice.
Advance Features
1. Smile Shutter- Detects Smile and then automatically takes Picture
2. Super Steady Shots- Eliminates blurring caused by unstable hand
3. Face detection- Detects faces & focuses on them
4. USB streaming- Download pictures from camera to the computer
5. ISRM- Hassle Free.The Camera automatically selects the settings
6. Double anti-blur solution- Reduces variations caused by shaky hands
7. Smart Capture- Auto selecting scene modes
8. DSLR- Captures wider range of data, useful enhancing or designing
9. HD photo- High definition image
10. Anti shake- Eliminates blurring
11. Internal Zoom Lens- Convenient to carry

Digital Camera Accessories
1. Memory card
2. Bags and pouches
3. Photo Printers
4. Tripods

Regards-Nishu

Long before google came up with the option to search for particular images in various sites with the help of the file name, references and meta tags. I ve been fiddling and wondering on a concept that if we needed to find a reference to a particular image about which we dont have any information. 

For instance you have an historical symbol or an archeological visual or a company’s logo but you have no idea where does it belong to or what does it refer to. We could just scan and upload it to the search engine and it could generate texts and images on various sites that refer to the same.

It is currently only capable of yielding results from the texts in the name of the file or text around it which is not necessarily accurate. If you are searching for the images of planet Saturn and if someone has put a picture of planet Pluto with the description of Saturn, you will get even this in your results. This could often lead you to misinterpreted results when you are looking for not so popular pictures. Imagine if you have a painting or a sculpture gifted to you by your grandpa and you dont know about its value, artist, provenence, age, etc. You could just upload a image of the same and reach the information related to the art work. 

Imagine similar possibilities in the field of science, technology, history, archeology, etc. But the point comes how can it be achieved. I am not sure of that yet. But I figured two such instances we hear of often like, firstly, how a new set of finger prints can be searched and matched from the database of fingerprints of millions of people. Secondly long back a friend of mine was working on a Human DNA project and he told me that they were developing some application to match DNA structures with images of the available patients structure. Now in both these cased an image reference is directly searched in other images without involvement of any text in this search. 

Though the creation of such an search engine can be very intensive and intricate but what a boon it can be. What do you think?

New twitter geo location feature

I am excited !!!the new feature on twitter to insert location tags to your tweets is not only interesting it can open up a whole plethora of oppurtunities.
Let me give you a simple situation.I goto a new city and start tweeting ,i can find friends and interesting people through my tweets.I want to go to a nice restaurant to go to i can check into peoples tweets for restaurants ,find discounts …and what not.Get local news relevant to me ..recently there was a tornado in Minneapolis ..the warning sirens never went off…imagine how helpful tweets can be in this situation with the new geo location feature..Good work twitter!!!

Slim PS3, Slimmer price

Sony has finally succumbed to the global recession pressure. They announced recently that the advanced  gaming system will be available for $299 from first week of September. Advanced bookings for it has also started in Amazon and K-Mart etc. Its packed with  Blu-ray, a 120GB hard drive, a DualShock 3 gamepad, and HDMI support with 1080p support. It will be 36 per cent lighter than the previous models. The Nintendo Wii and Microsoft XBox 360 had a price advantage over Sony PS3, which will no longer be there. I personally expect it to run out of stock sooner than anticipated. But PS3 slim is not backward compatible with PS2 games. Will update more on the applications if i get hold of it. kmart-ps3-slim

Developing Applications for Mobile devices

With the introduction of Apple’s IPhone’s SDK, the developers can take advantage and write their applications on their mobile with minimal effort. The day is not far away – where everyone can write a custom application for the mobile depending upon their need.

It offers most of the capabilities that the desktop environment offers, with proper control over memory and other resources.

IPhone SDK and Google’s Android  has changed the way.Personally, i have started writing some applications as part of my work in IPhone and Blackberry.I would like to share my experiences through this blog.

Keep watching  this space.

wasp17Wide Area Search for planets, a British consortium has found this new Planet on Thursday and named it WASP-17. It is supposed to be twice the size of  Jupiter, that makes it the biggest planet in the universe. It is 1000 light years away from earth. Though bigger than Jupiter, it is only half the mass of of it. So it is gaseous? The most unique thing about this new planet orbits in the reverse direction as the star it revolves around. The running theory says that the planet, dubbed WASP-17, had a close encounter with a larger one–and the resultant gravitational interaction slung WASP-17 onto its strange course. Does it mean we have a bigger planet that this?

Killzone 2 Review

I got my killzone 2 game when i brought my PS3. It came as a bundled offer and i never thought that a free bundled game would be so awesome. Although the story of kill zone starts from sometime back when it first came as game on PC and PS platform, this one continues from where the predecessors left it behind.

One of the best things about killzone 2 is the awesome graphics and the game play. This is one of the best FPS i have played since Halflife in terms of AI of the bots.  Also, one more nice things about this game is the range of weapons at your disposal. From the grenade launcher to the my fav sniper rifle. One of the cool things about dual shock controllers is that you have to keep your hands very stable while aiming through the sniper rifle. All in all its a game i would recommended to anyone buying a new PS 3.

killzone_2

Best digital SLR for beginners

With so many affordable digital SLR’s in the market its really hard to zone into the one thats right for you.

SLR is an acronym: it stands for Single Lens Reflex.

Now you know what SLR stands for but that doesn’t really help answer the question, does it? Let’s define further:

* With an SLR camera, you see exactly what the lens sees
* You can change the lens on a digital SLR
* Digital SLRs have large image sensors that produce high-quality photos
* An SLR has a near-zero lag time, and is ideal for action photography

Criterion’s to keep in mind for picking your first SLR
1. Megapixels
2. Cost
3.Size(Smaller the better)
4.Special features
5.speed

When picking up your SLR you need to make a commitment to the brand since you will be using lenses from that particular brand.This is a pretty big criteria since Canon and Nikon are perhaps the best lens maker’s around.
Sony and Pentax are close behind.
My pick Canon Rebel Xsi
canon1000d_frontview

Here is a very well compiled comparison for Canon slr from http://www.dpreview.com/

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos1000d/page2.asp

If you are a Nikon fan ,it has certainly come out with some very affordable yet incredibly efficient SLR’s like the Nikon D3000 and the Nikon D90.
My choice the Nikon D3000.
This is what Jordi Brinkman, Product Manager for Nikon Europe says: “The D3000 dispels the view that DSLR cameras are complicated and makes taking great pictures simpler than ever before. You can really concentrate on having fun with photography and the Guide mode helps you to get the best results with the minimum of fuss.”

The best site for all your SLR questions http://www.dpreview.com/

It will be useful for those who forget to put subject in their email especially working in corporate sector and need to send many emails to client/team.

1.  Open Outlook 2003

2.  Go To Tools > Macro > Security

3.  Select Medium instead of High or Very High if selected before.

4.  Press Alt+F11 (this opens the Visual Basic editor)

5.  On the Left Pane you’ll see “Microsoft Outlook Objects”, expand this.  Now one can see the “ThisOutLookSession”.

6.  Click on “ThisOutLookSession”.

7.  Copy and Paste the following code in the right pane. (Code Pane)

Private Sub Application_ItemSend (ByVal Item As Object, Cancel As   Boolean)

Dim strSubject As String

strSubject = Item.Subject

If Len(strSubject) = 0 Then

Prompt$ = “Subject is Empty. Are you sure you want to send the Mail?”

If MsgBox(Prompt$, vbYesNo + vbQuestion + vbMsgBoxSetForeground, “Check for Subject”) = vbNo Then

Cancel = True

End If

End If

End Sub
8.  Close Outlook 2003

9.  Next time when will you open your outlook it will ask you whether to Disable Macros or Enable Macros.

10. Select Enable Macros.

11. Just Try and enjoy the new feature of outlook

12. Only Demerit is every time you open outlook, you will Enable the Macro.

Save this and now close the VB Code editor and take a breath. From now on, this macro will make sure you do not make the mistake of sending an email without subject.

Debate – Agile versus CMMI

Hi all,
Firstly congrats to the creator of  this site. Wonderful job. In terms of my title topic ( Agility) I am just coming up with this jargon in all the companies I am visiting recently. There are massive changes in the designation and KRA assigned to people in software industry as most of projects are moving to Agile platform. Question is whether CMMI or Agile ? Guys please do let me know yours opinion on this.

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